Season Four Blog

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I was curious what everyone thought of the season four blog for the brewers. I'm personally excited, I think the changes make esters an interesting captain choice, but I really don't have any idea how good she'll be until we see the rest of the guilds heroic plays and changes. I like the changes, but i'm anxious to see what happens to this glorious guild.

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I was honestly a bit disappointed in the new Esters. She looks fine power-wise but somehow she just looks really boring. And I say this as someone who is a great fan of simplifying and getting rid of stuff that's complex for complexity's sake. Her losing the artillery aspect makes her a bit one-dimensional. I mean, the aura and her playbook are certainly powerful but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.

Oh well, I guess we'll see how the rest of the Guild shapes up. And maybe she's fun to play with as GB stuff is always a bit difficult to assess "on paper" IMO.

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Honestly, the only good news to come out thst blog was the fact Mash is getting a heroic play..

The loss of her ranged plays doesn't overly bother me as they always felt a little shoehorned onto the charachter, however the loss of "Empowered Voice" and "It's Not Over Until" seemed a bit excessive in an attempt to "simplify" the guild...

"Aria" is a great ability on paper but is only really there as compensation for needing to spend inf on a worse version of her previous traits.. I can see it having some uses but it's unlikely you will get the "magical" four heroic plays every turn as the blog seems to imply..

Lastly, her play book is certainly more consistent if all you want to do is "Tooled Up" and whack out a chunk of damage, however I feel with the same influence Tapper can do the same damage and still support the rest of the team (unless he also gets a massive nerf)

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Honestly, the only good news to come out thst blog was the fact Mash is getting a heroic play..

The loss of her ranged plays doesn't overly bother me as they always felt a little shoehorned onto the charachter, however the loss of "Empowered Voice" and "It's Not Over Until" seemed a bit excessive in an attempt to "simplify" the guild...

"Aria" is a great ability on paper but is only really there as compensation for needing to spend inf on a worse version of her previous traits.. I can see it having some uses but it's unlikely you will get the "magical" four heroic plays every turn as the blog seems to imply..

Lastly, her play book is certainly more consistent if all you want to do is "Tooled Up" and whack out a chunk of damage, however I feel with the same influence Tapper can do the same damage and still support the rest of the team (unless he also gets a massive nerf)

Yeah, it's indeed difficult to imagine how she would compare favourably to Tapper unless he gets hit super hard.

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One positive thing is that there is now a situation where Hooper can start the top of a turn by using True Grit and whack away (If he still has that)

I'll accept it does have some uses, thst being one of them.. It also enables Friday to trigger "I Shoot Better.." and go on a goal run with only one momentum in the bank and will have a massive threat under "Times Called"..

All of this assuming the Heroics haven't changed that much as we have only seen the front of the Kickoff team cards..

Tbh, I'm more concerned Hooper and Stoker are going to lose their condition removal in an attempt to make Esters more useful...

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Why on earth are you saying you expect the Brewers to lose stuff / not have their current heroics? It just seems like a bizarre conclusion to be drawing to me.

The Esters blog literally says that Decimate was above the power curve because the rest of the Brewers were below it, and they're looking at evening things out this time around. This is literal confirmation that the rest of the Brewers should expect buffs.

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Why on earth are you saying you expect the Brewers to lose stuff / not have their current heroics? It just seems like a bizarre conclusion to be drawing to me.

The Esters blog literally says that Decimate was above the power curve because the rest of the Brewers were below it, and they're looking at evening things out this time around. This is literal confirmation that the rest of the Brewers should expect buffs.

Because Esters lost a lot of stuff and while we should expect buffs, this is most certainly not a buff..

At the minute, all we know is that every Squaddie is going to have a heroic, while I'm sincerely hoping they keep the ones they currently have, there is nothing to say these won't be changed.

Apparently it has been confirmed there is a change on the back of oSpigots card so there is every chance "Times Called" has been changed to something different and the whole "bonus move for free under Aria" theory goes straight out the window...

We have also seen that a lot of the "kickoff" players have received a nerf to their health pool and / or lost plays off the front of their cards..

All we can do is wait and see but after yesterdays blog I am mentally preparing for the worst so I can be pleasantly surprised when the sky hasn't fallen..

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The 'change' is a major upgrade. It's probably enough to put stave into the 'pretty good, but not in every matchup' stable of players.

well he certainly goes from the "not in my ten" to "may actually get on the pitch" category for me, mostly because he can now do stuff without any influence and can do more if you need to give him any..

KD on 1 was always good..

I can see people who regularly used him in s3 complaining about the range and damage nerf though..

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well he certainly goes from the "not in my ten" to "may actually get on the pitch" category for me, mostly because he can now do stuff without any influence and can do more if you need to give him any..

KD on 1 was always good..

I can see people who regularly used him in s3 complaining about the range and damage nerf though..

Put it this way. If it costs you 2 less inf to use barrel lob, you have 2 additional inf spare.

That could easily be 2 extra damage (via an additional swing in melee), 2" more threat (for 1.5" more than S3) via a sprint, and the momentum to actually use his Heroic from. It could also be anything else you need your team to do.

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Based on today's blog, it seems to me that Brewers will keep their condition clearing abilities on the other models, namely Stoker, Hooper and Lucky. I am also wondering if the 2 DAM on Stave's heroic will get incorporated into Barrel Lob. I agree that by giving Stave free Barrel Lobs, he could actually see the pitch.

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Honestly, I'm not really bothered by the perceived power level and how close to the top we may end up as long as they remain "fun" and in character of their concept and the guild as a whole..

So far Stave seems like a big improvement with a few small "nerfs" to balance.. Esters is neither...

I agree. I'm excited to try out Stave on the table, and really underwhelmed by Esters.

Stave is going to have a different role (I have previously tried to use him to shove people towards me sometimes, and that's going to be harder with the reduced range b/c of how positioning the center of the AoE will work), but I love him as a threat extender or lane clearer with battering ram, and while I wouldn't play him into Fish, against some teams 2/1 tough hide is hopefully good enough to stop him from being quite such a momentum farm.

I would have been 100% fine with Ester's playbook changing and with her losing the ranged character plays (which I 100% agree don't fit the Brewers Guild flavor) if she'd kept her songs and legendary play- but the fact that she has to pay, at shorter range, for something that used to be free AND she has to be closer AND she lost the "increase DEF" option AND she can't do the super-flavorful opera grand finale with her legendary makes her boring as a player. Effective, perhaps, but super boring. She might be amazing in terms of power level (we don't know yet), but it doesn't change the fact that your turn playing her is a lot less fun/cool than it used to be.

In short, is Aria a powerful ability? Absolutely. Is the new model a LOT less fun and interesting in terms of decisions you get to make and things you can try to do with her? Also absolutely.

Final thought I haven't seen anybody writing about yet: why is Aria 4" (limiting the possible use of a situationally useful free heroic play) when Ox's auras are now 6", providing an ALWAYS useful damage buff/ARM debuff, Scatha's aura is 6", etc.? If Commanding Aura also stays 4" (I don't see any reason it won't), are Brewers captains supposed to narratively just be less good at buffing/inspiring their teams? Why the 2" extra for other captains as compared to ours?

Ah well. I'm a Brewer, through and through, I'll be here no matter what!